The wilder the flower, the sweeter the honey.

positive thinking

I somehow often seem to happen upon articles on the Interwebs that come at a most opportune time. I guess my bots are working very well then! Just the other day, I read a blog post by a chap called Gregg Braden and even though I’m not sure about all his suppositions, suggestions and research, I really liked this quote at the bottom of his post, packaged in a handy image for me to use as is.

One of the necessary evils of corporate life is that one gets to spend some time in all kinds of workshops with HR training people. One session springs to mind, the one where we had to categorise our lives into Thrive, Survive and Nosedive. The trick, they told us, was to move increasingly from Nosedive, through Survive (if necessary) and then on to Thrive.

I like it. Maybe that’s why it is one of the few sessions I actually remember. A friend came and sat on my patio last night and told me about her evening out recently, where she had to listen to two men whinge about other people (their friends, no less) and their own circumstances for an hour or so. Woe is me/us! She eventually told them that it must be hard to live in their skin. I agree. If you’re so hell-bent on complaining all the time, don’t expect anything to improve. I’m not saying everything is rose-coloured all the time, hardly, but moaning about it is unlikely to solve things and keeps you in the downward spiral of Nosedive. Trying to move into a different, more positive mindset might be a better idea! It will push you towards Survive, at the least, and perhaps even give you a taste to Thrive!

Whoah! In these trying times, can it be possible? I would like to think that it is exactly in this day and age of local and global turmoil that it is imperative to move towards Thrive, despite seemingly uncontrollable external circumstances. As the image above implies, achieving Thrive status means building on positive traits (new and old), not by avoiding negative ones per se.